Internet, Wi-Fi restored at Contra Costa’s 26 branch libraries

Internet, Wi-Fi and online access have been restored at the Contra Costa County Library’s 26 branches after a mysterious outage struck the entire system, the library announced in a news release Saturday.

The outage to the system, confirmed by library officials this week, occurred nearly two months after the county’s library system was hit with a randomware attack on Jan. 3 that disabled its online network for weeks.

In Saturday’s release, the library noted that patrons are now able to place holds online and check their account status. It also reported that patrons can access museum passes, the streaming service Kanopy, and Overdrive (Libby) for eBook and eAudiobook checkouts.

The service outage occurred as remediation work to restore library services and secure the network continues after the Jan. 3 cyber security incident, the release stated. The county Department of Information Technology (DOIT) is leading the active investigation in coordination with state and federal investigators.

Earlier this week, library spokeswoman Brooke Converse did not say what caused the latest outage and did not indicate whether investigators believe it was related to the original ransomware attack or could be the result of a new one.

The release stated that DOIT, library IT staff and industry experts are working on necessary maintenance, upgrades and installalation of new security software and modernize the library’s technology infrastructure.

“The work that is underway will do much more than just restore services; it will strengthen the network,” said DOIT’s Chief Information Officer Marc Shorr in the release. “These changes and upgrades will improve the reliability and security of the network and help to prevent future impact to services.”

Some library services like Link+ and the other online resources and databases will take a little longer to come back online, according to the release.

“As we reported in January, the library has no evidence that any personal patron data has been compromised,” the release stated. “The server that stores patron data related to library card accounts and transactions was not affected.”

While the library collects names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and birth dates, it does not collect Social Security Administration numbers or store credit-card payment information, according to a statement released by the library system in January. The statement also noted the libraries stopped collecting driver’s license information last year and removed all of it from customer records.

“We know this recovery has been frustrating,” said County Librarian Melinda Cervantes. “We appreciate how understanding everyone has been and want to reassure library users that we have made restoring services to the public the first priority.”

The Contra Costa County Library will continue to update ccclib.org as additional services are restored. For questions about impacted library services, patrons can contact library administration at 925-608-7700 during regular business hours.